New Albany's Romeo Langford (1) drives the ball down court guarded by Bloomington South's Grayson Rolen (5) during the first round of the Class 4A regional at Seymour High School on Saturday, March 10, 2018. New Albany defeated Bloomington South 65-45. (Photo: JAKE CRANDALL / COURIER & PRESS)

SEYMOUR – Cops were surrounding IU coach Archie Miller, and we’ll get there. Former Indiana Pacers enforcer Dale Davis was leaning menacingly against a wall, because he couldn’t possibly lean any other way, and we’ll get there too. Center Grove’s Trayce Jackson-Davis trampoline-dunking all over Evansville North in one early blowout? New Albany’s Romeo Langford pogo-dunking all over Bloomington South in another? John Mellencamp?

But first, let’s talk about the biggest star at the Class 4A boys basketball regional Saturday at Seymour High:

Indiana. The state, I’m saying. The people. You. Me. Us. Let’s talk about what happened Saturday morning at 5:30, when a carload of fans from New Albany arrived well before dawn, four hours before the gym doors opened, seven hours before their team’s game would start.

Oh, they weren’t first. That honor goes to a group from Bloomington South, who got there at about 5 a.m. By 8:45 the parking lot was full and cars were lining up on side streets and I was parking a half-mile away and walking toward the gym with a horde of fans. It was 34 degrees and you couldn’t just hear our laugher, you could see it, as we were giggling at how crazy this is, how beautiful this is, that we’re showing up hours before tipoff on a freezing Saturday morning — and were beaten here by about 8,000 people.

Only in Indiana, which has nine of the 10 largest high school basketball facilities in the country. This one, the Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium, is third with a capacity of 8,110, and by 10 a.m. the place is full. When doors opened at 9:30, the loudspeakers were playing the theme song from “Hoosiers.” Turns out, the cold weather outside isn’t the only thing causing chills.

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Center Grove's Trayce Jackson-Davis (23) dunks the ball against North during the first round of the Class 4A regional at Seymour High School on Saturday, March 10, 2018. (Photo: JAKE CRANDALL / COURIER & PRESS)

Here’s how good 6-8 Center Grove center Trayce Jackson-Davis was in the first game on Saturday morning: The New Albany student section was rooting against him — and New Albany wasn’t even playing! But they know their basketball at New Albany, and they sized up that early game between Center Grove and Evansville North and quickly deduced that Center Grove, led by the fabulously gifted Jackson-Davis, would be the bigger problem for New Albany in the nightcap.

So they tried to get in his head, did the New Albany student section. They chanted “Romeo’s better” — clap, clap, clap-clap-clap — and “Over-rated” and Jackson-Davis sure did seem bothered. Because he kept doing terrible things to the rim.

Jackson-Davis scored 26 points, nearly all of them on dunks, starting with the first bucket of the game as Romeo and the rest of the New Albany team watched from a spot high above the court, behind a railing in one corner of the gym. Jackson-Davis doesn’t have the skill of an NBA guard, but he has the quickness and explosion of one, and at 6-8 that’s just ridiculous. Then again, he might be 6-9. His body is like his game — both are still growing so fast — which is how in one year he has come from relatively nowhere to position himself as a legit candidate for IndyStar Mr. Basketball in 2019.

Jackson-Davis also had 11 rebounds and nearly put up a triple-double with eight blocks, and for Evansville North those were demoralizing. He was pinning balls at the top of the backboard square and swatting shots out of bounds and even, at one point, dismissively back-handing a shot. Because he could, I guess. After a particularly violent dunk — it could have been the one where he started in traffic from near the foul line, but honestly it was hard to keep track — Jackson-Davis ran back for defense with his finger to his lips, telling the crowd to shhhhhhh.

When it was over and Center Grove had advanced to the region final with a 69-44 wipeout of Evansville North, Jackson-Davis’ father waited for his son near the locker room. A fan approached Dale Davis slowly for a picture. Davis, who is terrifying if he’s not smiling, broke into a big smile and posed for the picture.

In the background I’m hearing “R.O.C.K in the U.S.A” over the loudspeakers, Seymour High paying homage to its most famous alum: John Mellencamp, class of 1970. And now I’m watching as Dale Davis’ son, Trayce Jackson-Davis, emerges from the Center Grove locker room and is approached by a young child asking shyly for an autograph. Trayce smiles and signs, his father’s son in so many ways.

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CLOSE

The New Albany Bulldogs advance to the regional finals, beat Bloomington South 65-45.
Clark Wade/IndyStar

New Albany is too good for Bloomington South, too much size and speed and way, way too much Romeo, and by the second quarter the Bulldogs lead 22-10 and I’m looking around the crowd for dignitaries. I spot one in an upper section, wearing a tiara. Her name is Sierra Midkiff — yes, “Sierra in the tiara,” and no, you’re not the first person to think of that — and she’s wearing a sash that says “Miss Floyd County.”

Sierra graduated from New Albany in 2016 and is part of an enormous New Albany cheering section that defies arithmetic. New Albany is one of four schools at the Seymour region, and tickets were distributed evenly, and I’m telling you this felt like a New Albany home game. Part of that, but only part, is the boost the Bulldogs received from the Evansville North student section, who appreciated the (anti-Center Grove) support of the New Albany student section. They chanted: “Thank you Bulldogs” — clap, clap, clap-clap-clap — and stuck around for the second game and cheered for New Albany against Bloomington South.

Also in the crowd: Archie Miller and IU associate head coach Tom Ostrom, sitting at midcourt behind the scorer’s table with IU signee Robert Phinisee of McCutcheon, who had texted his pal Romeo earlier in the week to say he might be coming. Across the gym, first row on the other side, is IUPUI coach Jason Gardner. Surely there were other college coaches. Maybe even other beauty pageant winners.

Indiana University head coach Archie Miller, middle, watches as the teams shake hands including top recruit New Albany's Romeo Langford, left, after the first round of the Class 4A regional at Seymour High School on Saturday, March 10, 2018. New Albany defeated Bloomington South 65-45. (Photo: JAKE CRANDALL / COURIER & PRESS)

There definitely were a pair of future pros on the court, Trayce Jackson-Davis in the first game and Romeo Langford in the second. The 6-5 Langford scored 28 points, and I’m telling you it was a quiet 28, even with the pogo-dunk where he rose for a lob and landed in traffic and then sprang right back up for the easiest two-handed dunk off two feet you ever saw. He added 10 rebounds and a driving-down-the-lane, passing-over-the-head assist to junior Derrick Stevenson for a corner 3-pointer that had the crowd responding in shocked unison: ohhhhhhhhh.

Romeo also plucked two Bloomington South shots off the backboard, just grabbed them like toys from a shelf, and never once responded to the physical gauntlet that saw him doubled whenever he touched the ball and sent him to the foul line 17 times. Like Jackson-Davis in the earlier game, Romeo was able to sit the final few minutes to rest for the region final later that night.

When this one was over, a pack of law enforcement officials — I counted seven — helped Archie Miller part the New Albany-red sea and get inside the Bulldogs’ locker room, where Archie wanted to give his regards to New Albany coach Jim Shannon. And if the IU coach happened to bump into Romeo Langford while he was back there, well, NCAA rules allow for that.

New Albany's Romeo Langford (1) is introduced before the first round of the Class 4A regional at Seymour High School on Saturday, March 10, 2018. New Albany defeated Bloomington South 65-45. (Photo: JAKE CRANDALL / COURIER & PRESS)

Romeo was in demand outside the locker room, where 40 or 50 people lined up for an autograph. A cheerleader from Bloomington South walked past the line and said to a woman in red: “Good job today, I hope you win tonight!” The woman in red smiled at the cheerleader and then shrugged as the girl disappeared, because the woman in red was an IU fan in a Hoosiers hoodie, hoping Romeo signs with Indiana instead of Kansas or Vanderbilt. Whatever her allegiance, she left disappointed a few minutes later when Shannon followed Miller out of the locker room and announced that Romeo wouldn’t be signing autographs after this game; come back tonight, Shannon was saying, and he’ll sign after the regional final.

A few minutes later Romeo met with the media and then had his own armed escort — a sheriff’s deputy on one side, a member of the Indiana State Patrol on the other — help him to the parking lot. Somewhere in Seymour, there was a meal to eat and maybe even a nap to take. Romeo, like Trayce Jackson-Davis and everyone else for New Albany and Center Grove, had another game to play in a few hours.

By 2:30 p.m. the Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium was cleared of fans. By 2:31, a line was forming outside. Doors were opening at 7. Only here …